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Daily industrial news and top headlines for plant and maintenance managers

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A North Carolina air filter manufacturing company says it will put its northeast production facility in upstate New York, creating 180 new jobs.
State economic development officials say Flanders Corp. will invest $7 million in the Columbia County town of Greenport, near Albany.

KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — State regulators have issued $200,000 in fines against Chrysler for safety violations found during the investigation of a worker's death at a central Indiana factory.
The Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration's investigation began in January after 62-year-old Claude Brock Jr.

SHANGHAI (AP) — China is giving its biggest, state-owned rare earths miner and producer a monopoly for the northern part of the country in reforms aimed at bringing the strategically important sector that's crucial to advanced manufacturing under tighter control.
The Ministry for Industry and Information Technology said in a statement seen Wednesday on its website that Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth (Group) Hi-Tech Co.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors and Ford are trying to reassure investors that their sales and profits will keep growing despite a weaker U.S. economy and slower auto sales
Carmakers have been hit with a string of bad news this spring, from the March 11 earthquake in Japan that left dealers short on cars to rising gas prices and unemployment.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (AP) — A massive, eight-alarm fire tore through a 112-year-old mill in northern Rhode Island on Tuesday, leaving one firefighter injured, forcing some residents to be evacuated and leaving hundreds without power, officials said late Tuesday.
Firefighters were called to a blaze at the former Alice Mills Rubber Manufacturing Plant in Woonsocket, just miles from the Massachusetts state line at about 7:30 p.

CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities say one employee is severely burned and three others are hospitalized after a substance ignited in a chemical-storage room at Intel's plant in Chandler.
They say the flash fire occurred in a self-contained room containing petroleum-based solvents used for cleaning.

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. (AP) — They look like harmless fun — fluffy, inflated castles, ships and slides filled with children jumping around carelessly, their parents letting their guard down a bit during playtime.
But an accident that sent three of the huge toys aloft on a breezy afternoon on New York's Long Island, left a woman seriously injured and hurt 12 other people is drawing attention to the little-known hazards of the inflatable playthings sometimes called "bounce houses" and the inconsistent regulations covering them.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — Workers at a recycling plant in northern New Jersey figuratively turned guns into plowshares Tuesday, accepting more than 900 illegal weapons that will be shredded and melted for use in the creation of a "Peace Angel" statue.
The statue will be donated to the New York City Police Department's lower Manhattan headquarters.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Tuesday called for China to disclose all its government subsidy programs as Beijing backed down in a trade dispute between the world's two leading economies over clean energy technology.
Washington filed a case with the World Trade Organization in December over grants provided by the Chinese government to wind turbine manufacturers that used key components made in China rather than purchasing imports.

LONDON (AP) — An expert at the World Health Organization says time is running out for German investigators to find the source of the world's deadliest E. coli outbreak, which has spread fear across Europe and cost farmers millions in exports.
German officials are still seeking the cause of the outbreak weeks after it began May 2.

LONDON (AP) — Stocks mostly recovered Tuesday as investors awaited a key speech from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke for any insights into U.S. monetary policy following a run of weak economic news.
Fears over the global economy have risen in recent weeks after a raft of underwhelming economic indicators, particularly out of the U.

DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday it wants to expand its global sales by 50 percent by the middle of this decade, mostly through growth in Asia.
The company planned to present its plans at a meeting for investors later Tuesday in New York.
Ford sold 5.3 million vehicles last year, but wants to sell 8 million in the next five or six years.

Siemens Industry, Inc. (Atlanta, GA) has announced the introduction of Speed Connect, which is a new quick-release mechanism that protects against vibration shakeout on the company’s Motion-Connect line of power and signal cables. The Speed Connect release makes installation faster, because the disconnects are entirely tool-less, according to the company.

Heavy-duty Tear Down Benches from Shure Manufacturing Corporation (Washington, MO) eliminate unsafe spills while speeding-up work on transmissions, small engines, and hydraulic systems, according to the company. They have a heavy-duty top with a 1/2” lip on all sides, plus all-welded adjustable height legs with four swivel casters.

Netherlocks (Houston, TX) is now offering mechanical valve interlocks that eliminate human error to ensure that critical valves are locked in the proper position. The interlocks are operated with two color-coded keys, which control the open and closed positions of a valve while communicating the current state.

3D printing has been around for a while, but it's largely been far too expensive for the ordinary consumer, or even the smaller manufacturer. Multiple comanies, such as 3D Systems and Makerbot, are coming to the market with cheaper 3D printers, not to mention technology giant HP. With so many companies throwing their hat into the ring, there's no question 3D printing will become a major market in the next few years.

When the stakes are high, uncertainty and risk go hand in hand. With regard to human and animal health, understanding where gaps exist in procedures, information and knowledge is critical.
This idea of “white space” — gaps — is not new, but it is worth resurrecting, as it was by Timothy Tyson, CEO of Aptuit, at a recent International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineers conference.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said Tuesday that he is concerned about the U.S. government's high deficit and what he called a jobless economic recovery.
The government needs a plan to pay down the roughly $14 trillion deficit, Akerson told reporters before the company's annual shareholder meeting in Detroit.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Steve Jobs re-emerged from his latest medical leave Monday to show off Apple Inc.'s latest innovations and sustain the hope that he eventually will return to dream up more ways to reshape technology.
The highlight, as usual, came at the end of Jobs' presentation. He was onstage for less than 30 minutes during a nearly two-hour event that primarily featured his subordinates.